Developing People in a Disrupted Industry
Navigating disruption
The office equipment industry, once dominated by printers and photocopiers, faced a huge shift with the surge of digitalization in the early 2000s. PrintTech (name changed for anonymity), a leading organization in the sector, found its core business model and company culture challenged by evolving technologies such as OneNote, Teams, instant messaging advances, and document management software.
This disruption demanded an urgent strategic pivot, leading PrintTech to embrace acquisitions and innovative new products. They acquired companies that provided solutions to match changing demands, which included document management services, large-scale printing and email providers, file sharing and collaboration tools, document management software providers and so on. PrintTech also began diversifying their physical product range, introducing projectors, multi-use devices (printer, photocopier and scanner in one), electronic whiteboards, and more.
A light-bulb moment
The steps PrintTech had taken were crucial in moving from a product-centric approach to a holistic, solution-oriented strategy. However, PrintTech’s leadership team knew that for such a transformation to be effective, a significant change in organisational design and company culture was needed.
Why PrintTech chose Rutherford HR
PrintTech had worked with us before, several years earlier. They reached out to us again when their leadership team recognized that complex cultural change was required to generate a return on their new investments. Specifically to:
- drive increased collaboration between business units,
- increase the knowledge of the organization’s full product range,
- increase levels of customer centricity, and
- develop solutions rather than simply sell products
A previously completed engagement survey also highlighted gaps in managerial capabilities — managers were not delivering what their teams wanted and needed — and PrintTech knew this area sat well within our capabilities.
Tailored training for disrupted teams
To address the areas of concern and foster collaboration, customer focus, and solution-based selling, we designed an intensive training program for PrintTech. This multi-tiered training program targeted three different levels within the organization and was delivered and run with 300 managerial staff in total.
Senior leaders
For the top-tier leaders (a team of 10), the focus was on aligning their understanding of the new strategy and its implications. Through interviews, we gained clarity and insight across three core areas:
- The consistent understanding of the strategy and how it’s articulated by each leader.
- What the strategy means to each leader in terms of their individual areas of responsibility.
- The behavior, skills, and capabilities that the whole organization required to be successful given their revised strategy.
PrintTech’s leaders also participated in psychometric and 360 assessments, focused on core behaviors to improve leadership effectiveness. This was followed by executive coaching to support their achievement of individual change plans aligned to assessment results.
With these insights, we were able to discern the key leadership challenges facing the most senior leadership and necessary behavioral changes to align their culture to their strategy. We then tailored a leadership workshop to explore these needs in greater detail. This specialized one-day workshop encouraged leaders to reflect and act on individual and team improvements. The workshop also highlighted different stakeholder scenarios and drew out specific behaviors and actions that needed to become prevalent in the organization for strategic success.
The answers and revelations uncovered in this Senior-level program were used to build specific skills development programs for this senior audience and informed the content of the workshops for the other two populations.
Senior-middle managers
This segment of 40 managers, responsible for leading multiple teams, completed 360 assessments before undertaking their training program. Their three ¾ day workshops were designed to facilitate a culture change and improve manager effectiveness in order to achieve strategic change.
Each day of the program focused on a different capability or behavior required for success and was framed around the skills and mindsets required to lead multiple teams and equipped the audience with the hard and soft skills necessary to change their organizations to align to the new organizational dynamics..
- Workshop one: collaboration: Working effectively across teams and collaborating to deliver a better client experience across multiple products.
- Workshop two: solution building: Working together to provide a unique offering for a client, rather than them buying what’s offered as standard.
- Workshop three: performance feedback: Building capabilities to collect and deliver feedback so teams can understand what they’re doing well and what needs to be improved.
Junior level managers
Around 240 junior managers engaged in self-assessments and completed three practical half-day workshops. Training followed a similar structure to the senior-middle program, but was tailored to the junior responsibilities of managing non-managers. This involved streamlining and adjusting content to be more relevant, and focused on making them more effective and adaptable to the new organizational dynamics.
A transformed PrintTech
The comprehensive training program yielded significant results across multiple areas of the business, reflecting culture change across the organization.
Staff
Firstly, there was enhanced self-awareness and a deeper understanding of the business among leaders in the three cohorts. People understood more about each other — about the work that they do, how they position their solutions, and who their customers are. The client opportunities that working with other individuals in the business might create became clear, as did what they needed from one another to execute on them.
The program also provided the leadership team with a practical, structured way to develop a core set of culturally significant behavior for the business, increasing their buy-in to the change.
PrintTech also reported (through subsequent engagement surveys and assessments) improved perceptions of manager and leader capability and saw the activation of individual and organizational change plans.
Processes
We were able to tell PrintTech’s L&D team that the areas they were focused on (product, product capability, and product knowledge) were not the areas of highest need for the business.
Additionally, up until this point, acquired companies had not been well-integrated into PrintTech. Going through the development programs enabled senior leaders to create and action smoother integration processes for newly acquired companies. This enabled these companies to be better assimilated and welcomed into the PrintTech culture.
Revenue
There was a significant shift in revenue composition, reflecting the successful transition from single-service products (printers and copiers) to modern technology-based services.
Embracing change for future success
PrintTech's journey with Rutherford HR highlights the critical role of people development in responding to industry disruption. By focusing on cultural change and managerial capability development, PrintTech navigated through challenging times and emerged stronger, more adaptable, and better aligned with the demands of a digital world.
Are you going through growth or complex change?
High-performing organizations don’t happen by accident. PrintTech's journey from a traditional office equipment provider to a modern, technology-driven enterprise is just one example of how we enable growth.
If your organization is facing similar challenges, talk to us. We work alongside leaders to build their staff and management capabilities, change organizational design, and increase performance.
A tailored, culture-centric approach can pave the way for enduring success — when you’re ready, so are we.